New York Times CEO compares Apple news service to Netflix, cautions against partnership
New York Times CEO Mark Thompson in an interview on Thursday offered a pessimistic take on Apple's news subscription service, saying publishers should not rely too heavily on third-party services for digital distribution.
The New York Times CEO Mark Thompson. | Source: Reuters
When asked by Reuters whether The New York Times planned to partner with Apple on the tech giant's forthcoming news service, Thompson deflected.
"We tend to be quite leery about the idea of almost habituating people to find our journalism somewhere else," he said. "We're also generically worried about our journalism being scrambled in a kind of Magimix (blender) with everyone else's journalism."
He went on to liken a potential deal with Apple to agreements film and television production companies struck with Netflix when the one-time DVD rental company forged the beginnings of what would become a massive digital streaming market.
"If I was an American broadcast network, I would have thought twice about giving all of my library to Netflix," Thompson said. "Even if Netflix offered you quite a lot of money. [ ... ] Does it really make sense to help Netflix build a gigantic base of subscribers to the point where they could actually spend $9 billion a year making their own content and will pay me less and less for my library?"
Hollywood was eager to take Netflix's money, perhaps without fully understanding the ramifications of its actions. Building on a base of licensed third-party content, Netflix was able to build a substantial audience and produce its own catalog of original shows that now competes with those very same offerings.
While Thompson did not explicitly comment on talks with Apple, the general tone of today's published interview suggests The Times will not be part of a for-pay service expected for unveiling next week. The CEO said his publication has no plans to distribute content through third-party platforms, and will instead focus on bolstering its in-house digital subscription brand. Still, the Gray Lady is not above tapping younger demographics through experimental projects involving products like Snapchat.
Apple is widely expected to reveal a news subscription service alongside a video streaming product at a special event on March 25.
Though the tech giant is leveraging its massive installed user base as an incentive to join the new news initiative, publishers are reluctant to hand over control of content on what is said to be onerous terms. Previous reports claim Apple is demanding a 50 percent cut of revenue on an anticipated subscription rate of $10 per month. By comparison, The Times charges $15 a month for access to its own platform.
While many major publishers are undecided about inclusion, or have declined outright, Apple has reportedly landed The Wall Street Journal in what is viewed as a major coup for the as-yet-unannounced service.
AppleInsider will be on the scene in Cupertino with live coverage of Apple's March 25 press event starting at 10 a.m. Pacific, 1 p.m. Eastern.
The New York Times CEO Mark Thompson. | Source: Reuters
When asked by Reuters whether The New York Times planned to partner with Apple on the tech giant's forthcoming news service, Thompson deflected.
"We tend to be quite leery about the idea of almost habituating people to find our journalism somewhere else," he said. "We're also generically worried about our journalism being scrambled in a kind of Magimix (blender) with everyone else's journalism."
He went on to liken a potential deal with Apple to agreements film and television production companies struck with Netflix when the one-time DVD rental company forged the beginnings of what would become a massive digital streaming market.
"If I was an American broadcast network, I would have thought twice about giving all of my library to Netflix," Thompson said. "Even if Netflix offered you quite a lot of money. [ ... ] Does it really make sense to help Netflix build a gigantic base of subscribers to the point where they could actually spend $9 billion a year making their own content and will pay me less and less for my library?"
Hollywood was eager to take Netflix's money, perhaps without fully understanding the ramifications of its actions. Building on a base of licensed third-party content, Netflix was able to build a substantial audience and produce its own catalog of original shows that now competes with those very same offerings.
While Thompson did not explicitly comment on talks with Apple, the general tone of today's published interview suggests The Times will not be part of a for-pay service expected for unveiling next week. The CEO said his publication has no plans to distribute content through third-party platforms, and will instead focus on bolstering its in-house digital subscription brand. Still, the Gray Lady is not above tapping younger demographics through experimental projects involving products like Snapchat.
Apple is widely expected to reveal a news subscription service alongside a video streaming product at a special event on March 25.
Though the tech giant is leveraging its massive installed user base as an incentive to join the new news initiative, publishers are reluctant to hand over control of content on what is said to be onerous terms. Previous reports claim Apple is demanding a 50 percent cut of revenue on an anticipated subscription rate of $10 per month. By comparison, The Times charges $15 a month for access to its own platform.
While many major publishers are undecided about inclusion, or have declined outright, Apple has reportedly landed The Wall Street Journal in what is viewed as a major coup for the as-yet-unannounced service.
AppleInsider will be on the scene in Cupertino with live coverage of Apple's March 25 press event starting at 10 a.m. Pacific, 1 p.m. Eastern.
Comments
I still personally much prefer Flipboard over Apple's news aggregator but all of this is in its infancy.
Apple could just buy AP, Reuters or even the NYT. Or all of them! I haven't seen the details of what Apple is offering, but supplying Apple news with some reasonable amount of content for a price doesn't seem foolhardy, more like a no brainer.
Does he think that once he offers his content on a 3rd party platform, it can't be offered anywhere else? I don't understand the logic behind this thinking. You pay for the content once - during production. I would think the more places that content is available, the more revenue you stand to make.
How is it any different then making your magazines available in newsstands, books stores, grocery stores, etc?
Apple News is just a single point of distribution... And hopefully subscription; I really hope Apple is building a news distribution model that follows the music streaming service model... Where we pay Apple the subscription and have access to a ton of content (articles), and Apple pays the content companies royalties based on what the user consumes.
Well, to his credit, he didn't like Apple's terms so he decided not to put his hat in the ring.
All conjecture though.
I'm looking forward to the 25th. I'm mostly interested in the roll-out worldwide. We are yet to get the TV app and the News app here, so this may be limited to the First World only.
Currently the Times is on Apple News and they do gain apparently enough subscribers from that option to keep themselves there, so I think his point is a bit undermined ... and I'm not sure he really meant what he said inferring that you (anyone) should only get your news from one source (as if that isn't precisely the big problem with American journalism these days), If he did mean it, I think he'll be disappointed, to put it mildly.
For the record I'm not sure whether I'll go for a subscription from Apple New Magazines (or whatever they call it) when it happens; I'm happy to support what I think is good quality journalism (across a very broad spectrum of views and subjects), so I'll have to see what the deal entails before making a decision.
But I do shop at a supermarket, so getting a wider variety of news for a bundle price seems like an attractive idea to me, if the goods are top quality and price isn't too high.
I think a lot will depend on how much money Apple's new service distributes, how much control they have in their articles. If they can add ads and who else is present on the platform. Also, if Apple and the Publishers can find the right balance of sharing information about their readers. I can see a lot of companies holding back for a while.
Apple's made a number of different pushes into this area and I think they've gotten a little better each time. Hopefully this will be one were they can find win situation for publishers, readers and Apple.
Leaving political orientation aside, the NYT is one of the last bastions of quality editorial journalism.
Most „journalism“ today is bait&click make money one-liners, which might feed our ADHS, our need for distraction, give us reasons to be outraged and discriminate, but does nothing to help us grow as a society or people.
So before you call institutions like the NYT “crap” - take a breath and (try to) think for a moment.